Slice without fear, cook without bounds

The Fastest Way to Cut Butternut Squash

So I know that it’s summer and that I’m usually picking summer-appropriate fruits. However…I made a great discovery this week. I was looking to make a smoothie this week and was out of bananas *gasp*. Also, I usually try to add a handful of spinach, but I had absolutely none. I discovered that I had some frozen butternut squash tucked away in a back corner of my freezer so I decided to take it off the bench.

I’ll tell you what. I had a pineapple, butternut, and vanilla protein smoothie and I couldn’t tell the darn difference between that and any other smoothie I had with banana. And on the plus side, I get to add a veggie to my smoothie without having to stare at my green sludge while thinking, “hmmm…do I really HAVE to drink that?”

So I did a little research to figure out if there were actually nutritional differences between using butternut squash or bananas and here’s what I found:

Butternut squash has half the calories of bananas

Butternut squash has almost an equal amount of potassium to bananas

Butternut squash has half the carbs, and a sixth of the sugar as bananas

Butternut squash has way more vitamin A and twice as much vitamin C

So for smoothies that banana isn’t the main flavor profile, just an additive, why not add some butternut squash instead? I didn’t even have to cook it. I just cut it up so it was pretty small. Which leads us to this tutorial:

1. Gear Up!

Chef’s Knife

Cutting Board

Butternut Squash

Ice cream scoop

2. Remove both ends to make flat surfaces.

3. Cut your squash in half right above the bell-shaped part.

4. Use your knife to peel the skin off of both halves.

All you need to do is place one of the flat ends of your squash on the cutting board, put your knife edge next to the skin, and press down firmly. Keep spinning your squash until you’ve cut off all of the skin. Repeat this with the other half of the squash.

5. Place the end that has seeds inside down on your cutting board. Cut this chunk in half.

6. Use your ice cream scoop to remove the seeds.

From here, we’ll use a similar technique to cutting a potato. Our aim is to make small cubes.

7. For the remaining pieces, slice them so they have large, flat surfaces.

The piece you’re seeing here is the top half of the squash that didn’t have seeds inside.

8. Place these large, flat pieces on top of each other, and make slices across the top.

9. Turn these slices of squash 90° so you’re making cubes now.

10. Slice the half that you removed seeds from with its “open” side down.

11. Next, place a few of these slices on top of each other, and cut through a few of those at a time.

Repeat this with all of your slices until you only have cubes.

12. That’s all folks!

Thanks for reading! I know this was a long one to read, but it sure took a while for me to figure out how to cut this, so hopefully this tutorial will save you time!

Leave me a note with what you’re planning to do with your butternut squash, now! Smoothies? Soups? Breads? (I don’t know if that one is possible, so keep me in the loop!)